The Things We Do for Charity

Ok, so maybe we didn’t make a huge personal sacrifice yesterday, but it was still not something we were looking forward to. Every year, my sisters, my husband and I walk in an MS Walk. It’s always around mid-April when the weather is a little bit questionable. We’ve been blessed with a beautiful day for the walk in the past. We’ve had cold years. We’ve had windy years. This year was our first cold, windy and rainy year.

After weeks of drought, the rain returned with a vengeance on one day where we really needed it to stay away. We all secretly hoped the others would say let’s just not walk this year, but no one stepped up and off we went. Dressed in a windbreaker and poncho, I spent the first half of the walk holding my poncho hood up to keep the cold rain from hitting my face. It was an easy decision to only do the short loop – 2.7 miles and get out of the rain as fast as we could. After the walk, it took a good 45 minutes before my hands would work properly after being frozen stiff.

I’m either proud of myself for sucking it up and participating or embarrassed that I actually voluntarily walked in the cold rain for so long. I haven’t decided. At the end of the day, the National MS Society got our donations, and we have a good story to reminisce about during next year’s walk. Hopefully, yesterday’s experience will be the worst we ever have.